For the record, I could care less about brand name, as I have personally owned a wide variety of CD and mixer models. No, Im not a Pioneer fan boy who sits outside a store at 5am waiting to get my hands on a new product. This is purely based on first hand ownership.
Having owned all of the above, and also DJ frequently with a friend who owns a top end Denon dual CD deck (DN-D9000), he asks me to bring both my decks over for one simple reason: the cue functions, control, and ease of use.
Every Denon deck I’ve used can’t properly cue worth a shit, you have to use the A1/A2 hot cue assignment to get the same effect, even then it is not the most time conscious process, nor effective in coming close to emulating the cue abilities of even a CDJ-800 MK1. It’s like this every Denon deck I’ve used, and trust me, I have tried them all - no exaggeration. The buttons also have a large amount of angular slack on all sides, which makes it difficult to tap on the fly. Attempt to depress any of the Cue and Play buttons of a Denon deck from any angle and see if you can register a “click”, you wont do it. This largely detriments the overall feel of the deck, and if this weren’t important, why does everyone bother modding their MIDI controllers with Arcade Buttons? - cause the originals suck, plain and simple.
Yeah, I will gladly admit Denon has the edge on features, but I for one rarely even touch them, and I’m well aware of what they do, and how to execute them.
Trust me, try the best possible Denon deck you can find, and try any revision CDJ-1000, or even a CDJ-400 (to be as handicapped as possible in this comparison), you’ll know what’s “fashionable” when it comes to raw function, user intuitiveness, and general quality. There’s a reason they are considered standard as far as CD decks go.
Don’t take my post for it, go out to a music store and try these things out first hand, you’ll immediately know what I mean.